The goal of an energy harvesting (EH) system is to extract intermittently available energy from ambient energy sources such as light, thermal difference and vibrations, and use the energy to perform useful work. As the ambient energy available is relatively modest, energy harvesting systems are more suited for low power, low duty rate applications such as wireless sensor networks, structural health monitoring and asset tracking. More...
Recent advances in ultra-low-power microcontrollers have produced devices that offer unprecedented levels of integration for the amount of power they require to operate. These are systems on a chip with aggressive power saving schemes, such as shutting down power to idle functions. In fact, so little power is needed to run these devices that many sensors are going wireless, since they can readily run from batteries. More...
Currently, most energy harvesting technologies are using battery back-up and are likely to for several years to come. Companies are trying to find appropriate energy storage alternatives to traditional batteries, however. Batteries are problematic for large-scale wireless applications. Today’s cost premium is typically below what it costs to swap the battery one at a time, including battery cost, labor and so on. Over an expected lifetime of 15 years, a self-powered sensor could provide “significant” cost savings. More...
Today, people are more concerned about fossil fuel exhaustion and environmental problems caused by conventional power generation and renewable energy sources than ever before. Among the renewable resources, photovoltaic panels and wind-generators are primary contenders. They have the advantage of being maintenance and pollution-free, but their installation cost is high and, in most applications, they require a power conditioner (dc/dc or dc/ac converter) for load interface. Photo Voltaic modules (PV Modules) also have relatively low conversion efficiency. More...
Traditional charge controllers seldom take into consideration the loading on a solar panel and thus don't derive the complete available energy from the panel. This is where maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controllers come into the picture.More...
Over the course of my career, I have worked with a wide spectrum of analog and digital designers. Each one has their own quirks and reasons why they can’t do everything. In this article the digital designer will find some helpful tips when diving into the “darker (analog) side” of designing circuits. Or, from my perspective, they are finally rising to the light. More...
It’s often said that most of today’s designs are mixed signal, and that mixed-signal verification remains one of the biggest design challenges. A typical chip design today is a complete system with millions of gates that make up large numbers of DSPs, memories and processors, all of which must interface with the real world through displays, antennas, sensors, and cables. This requires unprecedented integration of analog and digital content, without compromising performance or size, and on a technology scale that dramatically increases vulnerability to process and electrical variation. More...
“The real world is analog and computers are digital.” These nine words set the stage for the great circuit design challenges of the next decade. To quote G. Dan Hutchenson, president of VLSI Research, “virtual reality is possible only with mixed-signal chips,” and of course, every designer on the planet, from the creators of advanced weaponry to smart phones and cars that nearly drive themselves, is hot on the trail of virtual reality. More...
Today’s mobile devices are quite complex, with many RF radios packed into an ever shrinking footprint. How to pack more radio components into less space? Shrinking the individual radio components is the obvious one, while integration of the individual parts is the other. More...
In 1997, the Motorola Startac and Palm Pilot were state of the art consumer electronics for the mobile professional. They were superb tools for staying in touch with customers, managing your calendar and organizing contacts. More...
Cell phones, portable navigation devices and portable media players are built around one main host processor that acts as the brain of the device and runs all the software needed to make the product work, such as audio and video streaming or Internet connections. Implementing a novel system partitioning, in such a way that not everything is controlled by these processors, can help reduce the development time. More...
With an ever increasing feature set found in today’s portable devices, a mobile phone can now function as a multimedia playback system, digital still camera and personal digital assistant (PDA). A portable media player (PMP) is now a navigation system, music player, global positioning system (GPS) and digital film library. Several systems are available with MP3 / MP4 playback, GPS, TV and gaming with web browser. Most manufacturers are now placing a greater emphasis on sound quality because sound is a key element to differentiate their products. Some manufacturers will even put more than one speaker in a system to improve the sound quality and output level. More...
The use of Class D audio amplifiers has become increasingly widespread in portable applications. As complexity, size and audio performance have improved, the Class D topology continues to gain market share. So compelling a benefit is efficiency that Class D amplifiers are now used extensively in portable designs worldwide, as battery life and small profile become key differentiators for end-users. The efficiency advantage is more pronounced when one realizes the typical audio application will normally operate at less than one-third of the total output power specified. More...
All of us have experienced trying to make a mobile phone call from a noisy street, crowded restaurant or train station where the background noise can make it impossible to hear the incoming call. It can be worse when the person next to you in these situations is yelling into the receiver in an attempt to be heard. Active and passive noise canceling technologies can minimize background noise in high end headphones; however these technologies today can not provide the same benefits in mobile handsets. Clearly mobile handsets could benefit from noise cancellation. More...
Most readers will remember the feel of magnets moving in their hands like live things as opposing magnetic fields push against each other. Those are the forces that make electric motors turn: a rotating magnetic field pulls the rotor along after it. More...
CMOS-based isolation technology has given rise to isolated gate drivers, multi-channel digital isolators and AC current sensors that offer significant gains in performance and reliability compared to legacy galvanic isolation techniques. More...
Developers of new systems ideally should make decisions regarding clocking requirements early in the design process. Although clocking rates are critical parameters that should be known in advance, determining these rates sometimes requires experimentation and re-evaluation. More...
A small niche product five years ago, MEMS sensors now constitute a multi-billion dollar industry. So what exactly are MEMS motion sensors and how do they work? More...
Traditional charge controllers seldom take into consideration the loading on a solar panel and thus don't derive the complete available energy from the panel. This is where maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controllers come into the picture.More...
Resistive touch sensors consist of several panels coated with a metallic film, such as ITO (indium tin oxide), which is a transparent and electrically conductive. Thin spacer dots separate the panels from each other. When something, such as a finger (gloved or bare) or a stylus presses on the layers, it causes the two panels to make contact and closes an electrical circuit so that a controller can detect and calculate where the pressure is being applied to the panels. The controller can communicate the position of the pressure point as a coordinate to the application software. More...
The introduction of the Apple iPad and its initial successful adoption in the market has triggered the introduction of a whole new class of similar consumer devices. It is evident that the key to the success of such devices is the ability to deliver rich multimedia content efficiently and reliably. However, most tablets fail to meet these expectations in terms of the time it takes to download data and the associated power consumption.More...
Clock trees pose a growing challenge to advanced node IC design, particularly with regard to the chip power consumption. Clocks are the single largest source of dynamic power usage, which makes clock tree synthesis (CTS) and optimization as a good place to achieve significant power savings. More...
Any device capable of generating signals with frequencies in the RF range is a potential source of Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI). These signals can cause interference in the normal operation of electronic devices such as radios, televisions, cell phones and other types of equipment. The primary sources of EMI in most systems are the clock generation and distribution circuits. More...
At first glance, the term “auto-zero” operational amplifier (op amp) may appear to be something new, but in reality this architectural concept has been around for decades. This article will explore the history behind auto-zero op amps and provide a high-level overview of the architecture. Additionally, the article will explore the inherent benefits of this architecture for signal-conditioning applications. Finally, an example application will be analyzed to further compare the auto-zero architecture to that of traditional op amps. More...
The use of Class D audio amplifiers has become increasingly widespread in portable applications. As complexity, size and audio performance have improved, the Class D topology continues to gain market share. So compelling a benefit is efficiency that Class D amplifiers are now used extensively in portable designs worldwide, as battery life and small profile become key differentiators for end-users. The efficiency advantage is more pronounced when one realizes the typical audio application will normally operate at less than one-third of the total output power specified. More...
These devices have traditionally been data mining devices which relied on an application running on a personal computer to analyze the data and return the runner’s performance results. Now, by utilizing 32-bit microcontrollers designers are able to efficiently perform the necessary on-board calculations to give athlete’s direct and immediate feedback to motivate and enhance the workout. More...
Achieving optimal power efficiency is a primary goal of many chip designs. Yet, three common mistakes in manual RTL power optimization practices undermine this goal: focusing on clock gating percentage, choosing sub-optimal memory architectures, and ignoring “don’t care” conditions. Fortunately there are automated strategies that produce more efficient designs. More...
As part of the verification task and in order to follow the verification plan, a user may need to extend the generic verification environment behavior beyond its original intent. Unlike design, where specifications can capture the desired functionality in a complete and deterministic form, the verification process is fluid, dynamic and unpredictable. More...
The initiation interval can be set anywhere from a synthesis tool dependent maximum down to an II=1 on any feed-forward design. However, a design with feedback limits the initiation interval to be no less than the delay of the feedback path. There are three types of feedback, data dependent, control dependent, and inter-block feedback. More...
Over two decades ago, designers shifted from gate-level to RTL design. This shift was driven by the development of standard Verilog and VHDL RTL coding styles, as well as the availability of RTL synthesis and implementation tools. A major benefit of moving to RTL was that it enabled designers to focus more on the intended cycle level behavior designs and design correctness at this level, and much less on gate-level considerations. More...
Nested loops and the effects of pipelining nested loops is often one of the most misunderstood concepts of high-level C++ synthesis. Understanding the resulting hardware behavior from synthesizing non-pipelined and pipelined nested loops allows designers to more easily meet performance and area requirements. The simple accumulator that has been used in previous examples can be extended to illustrate the effects of nested loops. More...
In HDL, such as Verilog and VHDL, static elaboration of the instances hierarchy occurs before simulation starts. This ensures that all instances are in place and connected properly before run-time simulation. In SystemVerilog, classes are instantiated at run time. This raises a few questions: When is it safe to start traffic generation and execution? When is a good time to assume that all the UVC components have been created? and What TLM ports can be connected?More...
One of the most important features of HLS for tuning design performance is Loop Unrolling. However, it is necessary first to discuss what constitutes a “loop” in C++. Loops are the primary mechanism for applying high level synthesis constraints as well as moving data, or IO, into and out of an algorithm. The style in which loops are written can have a significant impact on the quality of results of the generated hardware. More...
The UVM is first and foremost a methodology and collection of best practices for functional verification. As mentioned before, the UVM library is a capable and mature enabler of this high-level methodology. While the library classes and engines can be used in arbitrary ways, we highly recommend following the UVM as prescribed in the following chapters, as they suggest a proven recipe for successful verification. More...
One of the common misconceptions held by people is that synthesizing hardware from C++ provides users the freedom of expressing their algorithms using any style of C++ coding that they desire. When designing using high-level C++ synthesis, it is important to remember that we are still describing hardware using C++, and a “poor” description can lead to a sub-optimal RTL implementation. This chapter attempts to cover the basics of high level synthesis, and to show what designers can expect from a given coding style. More...
Designers using advanced energy-efficient techniques increase the complexity of their designs. These techniques are defined at the architectural level and have a strong impact throughout the design process. Complexity induced by multi-power domain chips and advanced low-power techniques make verification a difficult task. For all these techniques, verification is becoming the biggest bottleneck. More...
Assuming that static verification yields a clean result, we can assume that in a steady multi-voltage state, there are no further obvious electrically hazardous conditions. Corner cases may well exist that need to be uncovered by dynamic verification. However, before we get there we have some basic functionality to verify. More...
This chapter takes a detailed look at both static and dynamic verification. We cover static verification first as part of the flow and move onto dynamic verification. The flow at various design stages is also discussed. More...
As can be expected, the impact of power management can be felt on how code is written as well, both for the DUT and testbench. This section contains coding issues and guidelines for low power designs. These are usually encountered when migrating either existing code or coding rules to low-power designs. They involve both testbench and DUT code. More...
In this chapter, the formation or migration to a multi-voltage testbench is discussed. The various testbench components are also identified and discussed. This will cover coding guidelines, power intent and library modeling aspects as well. Overall preparation for the verification process is the focus of this chapter. More...
It is a universal truth that evolution is a never ending progression. Whether biological or technological, evolution is all about overcoming the hurdles in the path of development. We evolve and cross one hurdle and soon face another, then evolve again. For example, new modes of transportation were invented to resolve the travel-time issue, and now there is too much traffic. Whether it is in the air or freeway, this is one of many hurdles we must cross in transportation. The verification industry is no different. More...
The Android mobile device platform from Google and the Open Handset Alliance has ignited the imagination of mobile original equipment manufacturer (OEMs), developers and end users. Since its introduction, Android has enjoyed a rapidly growing market presence and bullish prospects for new deployments. Moreover, Android’s success as an open-source environment gives it additional momentum and rapid acceptance, and drives a fast-growing ecosystem of application developers. However, the underlying standard software components and an active developer community have not necessarily made it easier for OEMs to bring Android-based devices to market. More...
Functional verification consumes from 50% to 65% of the development time and budget for today’s system-on-chip (SoC) projects. With fragmented tools and development methodologies that rely on manual scripting, collections of disparate verification tools, inter-tool incompatibilities with almost-standard transaction languages, and mismatched database sources, functional verification can itself become a project that deflects attention from the main development goals. Instead of optimizing and debugging product designs, engineers spend time debugging their workflow and compensating for gaps in their verification tool chain. More...
Trends in handheld wireless devices can change quickly. Driven by fickle consumer tastes, technologies and applications can drift in or out of fashion as easily as a pair of sunglasses. To capitalize on market demand for “what’s hot”, embedded device designers must apply new technologies rapidly and time-to-market becomes the Holy Grail. More...
ICs for smart phones, music players, and other portable products now depend on a palette of relatively exotic design methods, including multiple voltage domains, and dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), to effectively manage power. These new techniques present a minefield of challenges to the entire design flow. More...
It’s often said that most of today’s designs are mixed signal, and that mixed-signal verification remains one of the biggest design challenges. A typical chip design today is a complete system with millions of gates that make up large numbers of DSPs, memories and processors, all of which must interface with the real world through displays, antennas, sensors, and cables. This requires unprecedented integration of analog and digital content, without compromising performance or size, and on a technology scale that dramatically increases vulnerability to process and electrical variation. More...
“The real world is analog and computers are digital.” These nine words set the stage for the great circuit design challenges of the next decade. To quote G. Dan Hutchenson, president of VLSI Research, “virtual reality is possible only with mixed-signal chips,” and of course, every designer on the planet, from the creators of advanced weaponry to smart phones and cars that nearly drive themselves, is hot on the trail of virtual reality. More...
The global energy and climate crises that have gained significant awareness over the past six to eight years have “fueled” the emergence of so-called “green” technology initiatives in several key markets, most notably the information technology sector. Semiconductor component power consumption represents problematic challenges that include: mega-server farms consuming hundreds of megawatts, handheld consumer devices, and physical device scaling below 45nm semiconductor process nodes. The result has been a newfound awareness that “off-by-default” may become the mantra for next-generation semiconductor design practice. More...
Normally you order an evaluation kit to check out whether a particular microcontroller seems appropriate for a design you have in mind; if everything seems OK, you then order a more costly development kit to prototype your design. Cypress’ CY3267 PowerPSoC Lighting Evaluation Kit manages to cross that line.More...
This paper describes the different building-blocks needed to power LED backlights in small format LCDs. A switched capacitor voltage regulator is desirable for applications requiring low cost and small solution size. The constant current regulator approach adds to these features excellent current matching and brightness control. Last but not least the inductive boost solution yields the lowest power consumption over the entire supply voltage range. More...
Traditional charge controllers seldom take into consideration the loading on a solar panel and thus don't derive the complete available energy from the panel. This is where maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controllers come into the picture.More...
In today’s applications dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) means either optimizing battery lifetime in portable applications, or saving energy and reducing heat in complex, multiprocessor environments. Interface and DVS functionality gives the system designer a new and highly advanced tool to achieve the best results in today’s complex applications. More...
Today’s portable electronics have become computationally intensive devices as the user interface has migrated to a fully multimedia experience. To provide the performance required for these applications, the portable electronics designer uses multiple types of memories: a medium-speed random access memory for continuously changing data, a high-speed memory for caching instructions to the CPU, and a slower, nonvolatile memory for long-term information storage when the power is removed. Combining all of these memory types into a single memory has been a long-standing goal of the semiconductor industry. More...
The number of functions being demanded by consumers in portable devices is growing every day. Gone are the days when it was acceptable to have separate devices providing voice access, email and web access, music, video, and gaming. As the number of features and functions embedded into portable devices increases, so does the need for embedded non-volatile memory (NVM). More...
While multicore processors have certainly become an important part of many SoC designs, there are still several obstacles designers face in dealing with more than one processing engine on a chip. It’s time to look at self-timed network on chip (NoC) interconnect fabrics for embedded communication networks. More...
This is the Age of Multicore. After 40 years of surfing Moore’s Law to greater and greater levels of performance, a few years ago the semiconductor industry finally started to hit some brick walls thrown up by simple physics. When at 32 nm static power becomes a more difficult problem than dynamic power, it’s time to consider your options. More...
Discussions of multicore chips, multiprocessors, and associated programming models for portable system design continue to be narrowly bounded by a focus on individual, general-purpose processor architectures, DSPs, and RTL blocks, which severely limits the possible ways in which you might use multiple computing resources to attack problems. Big semiconductor and server vendors offer symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) multicore processors, with each core supporting multiple threads. Such multicore chips are found in large servers and laptops. However, these power-hungry, general-purpose multiprocessor arrays do not serve well as processing models for many portable systems. More...
Having an on-chip Switched Mode Pump in microcontrollers and SoCs is helpful in powering low power embedded applications. Improving its efficiency helps improve the endurance of the battery. It also results in lesser number of batteries disposed, encourages designers to develop solar cell powered systems, and contributes towards a greener planet. More...
The need for low power embedded designs has always been high motivated by the desire to run applications for as long as possible while consuming the minimum power. In a battery powered system, this need is magnified. Furthermore, in battery powered systems low power implies lower cost of operation and smaller battery size to make applications more mobile. When energy comes at a premium as it does with today’s green initiatives, ensuring that an embedded design consumes as little energy as possible assumes significant importance in wall-powered applications as well. More...
The synchronous buck converter achieves high efficiency by replacing the Schottky clamp diode with a low-side MOSFET. This MOSFET has a very low drop across the switch. However, because its internal diode is not a Schottky, when it turns off and the high-side MOSFET is turned on, a large ringing in the waveform occurs. More...
This article examines design methods and practical advice for saving power. Since modern programmable logic devices (PLDs) have very low dynamic current requirements, often in the microampere range, they are ideal as system event monitors to control overall system wake/sleep states. More...
Clock trees pose a growing challenge to advanced node IC design, particularly with regard to the chip power consumption. Clocks are the single largest source of dynamic power usage, which makes clock tree synthesis (CTS) and optimization as a good place to achieve significant power savings. More...
It can be quite a challenge to meet today’s mandated efficiency requirements for power supplies. Just understanding the requirements is difficult enough, thanks to the dizzying array of initiatives and directives that vary by end equipment, power level, and governing authority. These include Energy Star, the California Energy Commission, and the EU Stand-by Initiative, to name a few. However, after a quick glance at any of these the energy conservation initiatives, it becomes clear that one of the greatest challenges for the power supply designer is to minimize the power loss at light loads and no load. Here are five ways to remove those last few milliwatts from an offline flyback supply. More...
Li-ION rechargeable batteries, with a projected yearly market growth rate of approximately 20%, are widely used in smart phones, portable media players, and digital still cameras. This battery type is widely adopted because of its high energy density on both gravimetric and volumetric basis, low self discharge rate, and low maintenance. Li-Ion batteries are also lighter in weight than NiCad and NiMH batteries. More...
The market drives digital signal processor (DSP), microcontroller and field programmable gate array (FPGA) manufacturers to continually increase clock frequencies for higher performance while, at the same time, also demanding lower power consumption. These two opposing criteria led to the development of multiple power rail devices. More...
This paper describes the different building-blocks needed to power LED backlights in small format LCDs. A switched capacitor voltage regulator is desirable for applications requiring low cost and small solution size. The constant current regulator approach adds to these features excellent current matching and brightness control. Last but not least the inductive boost solution yields the lowest power consumption over the entire supply voltage range. More...
The adoption rate of load switches continues to increase across a broad range of end equipment including portable electronics (mobile phones, portable consumer electronics, notebooks or any portable equipment). Load switches are increasingly used in power management architectures to distribute power from a single regulated source or to switch off any unused peripherals (camera module, WLAN module, SD Card slot, LCD display, etc.) with the goal of limiting current leakages and optimizing the power consumption in a system. More...
The tremendous growth in the semiconductor industry over the last two decades has largely been a result of the scaling of CMOS devices which, over the years, has yielded lower costs with more die per wafer, smaller feature sizes and increased performance. However, device scaling has reached a point of threshold today, wherein its benefits are realized only if a device’s power consumption can be reduced by a few orders of magnitude. More...
Frequency and voltage scaling are common place in portable electronic processors. These devices are providing more and more functionality and demand the highest data processing efficiency. Adaptive Voltage Scaling (AVS) provides the lowest operation voltage for a given processing frequency by utilizing a closed loop approach. The AVS loop regulates processor performance by automatically adjusting the output voltage of the power supply to compensate for process and temperature variation in the processor. In addition, the AVS loop trims out power supply tolerance. When compared to open loop voltage scaling solutions like Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS), AVS uses up to 45% less energy. More...
In today’s applications dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) means either optimizing battery lifetime in portable applications, or saving energy and reducing heat in complex, multiprocessor environments. Interface and DVS functionality gives the system designer a new and highly advanced tool to achieve the best results in today’s complex applications. More...
Architectural Issues for Power Gating By Michael Keating (Synopsys, Synopsys Fellow), David Flynn (ARM, ARM Fellow), Robert Aitken (ARM, ARM Fellow), Alan Gibbons (Synopsys, Principal Engineer), and Kaijian Shi (Synopsys, Principal Consultant)
A scalable approach to chip architecture is valuable since a system-on-chip design today often becomes a component in an even larger chip in a subsequent product generation. This article discusses some of the architectural issues involved in implementing power-gating designs. In particular, it addresses the issues of partitioning, hierarchy and multiple power-gated domains. More...
Power management is vital to extending runtime for portable applications. Power conversion in these applications has been dominated by analog circuits, while the power management has been performed by embedded processors and simple sequencers. These analog solutions have served the system well. With recent trends in power solutions focusing on digital control, new opportunities emerge for portable power solutions. More...
Portable applications need the support of battery management systems to ensure that the productivity of batteries is maintained and to deliver the best power profile over the batteries’ lifetime. In most applications today, batteries need to be replaced often and a system that can offer a means to have efficiently managed so as to prolong its life can offer several benefits. In addition to a lower overall cost since the consumer will not have to continually purchase new batteries, prolonging battery life means fewer battery replacements, which in turn means less waste. More...
Despite the consumer’s seemingly insatiable desire for video-rich applications, minimizing power consumption and maximizing battery life remain absolute requirements for portable mobile devices. Navigating these conflicting objectives requires a holistic, comprehensive approach to saving power. Portable designers must deploy power saving-techniques throughout the design flow to achieve both standby and active power requirements. More...
CMOS-based isolation technology has given rise to isolated gate drivers, multi-channel digital isolators and AC current sensors that offer significant gains in performance and reliability compared to legacy galvanic isolation techniques. More...
In historical terms, the death of the flint tool, cooking by dung and other bygone technologies occurred very rapidly. This was because several factors conspired to bring in the better alternative and this created a multiplier effect. So it is with lead acid batteries. More...
Wireless power systems are emerging as a practical option for conveniently recharging mobile phones and other handheld devices. Implementing an industry standard interface allows a common charging pad (TX) to recharge multiple types of battery-operated devices (RX). More...
Li-ION rechargeable batteries, with a projected yearly market growth rate of approximately 20%, are widely used in smart phones, portable media players, and digital still cameras. This battery type is widely adopted because of its high energy density on both gravimetric and volumetric basis, low self discharge rate, and low maintenance. Li-Ion batteries are also lighter in weight than NiCad and NiMH batteries. More...
It can be quite a challenge to meet today’s mandated efficiency requirements for power supplies. Just understanding the requirements is difficult enough, thanks to the dizzying array of initiatives and directives that vary by end equipment, power level, and governing authority. These include Energy Star, the California Energy Commission, and the EU Stand-by Initiative, to name a few. However, after a quick glance at any of these the energy conservation initiatives, it becomes clear that one of the greatest challenges for the power supply designer is to minimize the power loss at light loads and no load. Here are five ways to remove those last few milliwatts from an offline flyback supply. More...
Currently, most energy harvesting technologies are using battery back-up and are likely to for several years to come. Companies are trying to find appropriate energy storage alternatives to traditional batteries, however. Batteries are problematic for large-scale wireless applications. Today’s cost premium is typically below what it costs to swap the battery one at a time, including battery cost, labor and so on. Over an expected lifetime of 15 years, a self-powered sensor could provide “significant” cost savings. More...
As enterprise data centers expand to support cloud-based services, network managers are faced with an uncomfortable paradox: Exponential growth of users demanding high-bandwidth service is driving architectures that offer unprecedented density of 100-Mbit and 1-Gbit ports in a single line card, even as power costs and green initiatives place new demands for energy efficiency in the data center. More...
Wireless power systems are emerging as a practical option for conveniently recharging mobile phones and other handheld devices. Implementing an industry standard interface allows a common charging pad (TX) to recharge multiple types of battery-operated devices (RX).
